by Derek Gunn
She could see the split ahead. It was coming up so quickly and she was still only in the middle of the throng. She began to fight her way through the mob but they were too strong for her. The smaller corridor was only twenty feet ahead now. Her heart beat faster; she opened her mouth, trying desperately to utter a sound but her chords were long dead, not even capable of uttering a desperate sob. The image of a dream came to her again as she was carried helplessly along.
Ten feet.
She wasn’t going to make it. She just wasn’t strong enough. Her feet were suddenly lifted from the ground and she lost all purchase on the ground and was carried past the corridor. She threw her hands desperately towards the safety of the small inlet as though she could fly or carve a path to safety. Her heart hammered in her small chest, her mind filled with panic as the corridor passed by. Suddenly, something gripped her arm. The grip was so strong that she tried to wrench herself free but she couldn’t pull loose. She also couldn’t see who had a hold of her, but she put everything into trying to free herself. She clawed at the arm with her free hand, feeling her nails bite into the hand that held her. The grip never loosened. She felt herself being pulled relentlessly to the right against the flow of people. She was struck a number of times by elbows and feet but the grip on her arm never relented and slowly she was pulled towards the inlet. She finally stopped struggling once she realised what was happening. Someone was pulling her to safety.
* * *
The three shadows slipped through the ruins unseen. The main force was still successfully distracting the humans and it was easy to slip around their defences. From his vantage the thing that had once been Justin Stewart smiled, though there was no humour in the action. In the five years since he had made his choice and joined the thralls his humanity had eroded away completely. Not that he had ever shown much humanity during his life. Life hadn’t exactly been kind to him either, so he didn’t think he owed it anything. He had been born to a drug-addicted mother and his first month of life had been spent screaming as he had been weaned off the drugs his mother had pumped into him from her body.
His mother had died shortly after his birth and the system had taken control of his fate. He had passed through a number of families but had never settled. His propensity for addiction had never left him. He had craved attention, food anything to try and fill the hole. He had never understood exactly what it was but nothing seemed to satisfy him. As he grew so too did his gnawing hunger. He was cruel, dominating, and never spent long enough in one place to address the pain that existed within him. Instead he fed the pain with excess and finally with the very drugs that had killed his mother.
When the vampires had come he had been in prison screaming as his system was, once again, being weaned from drugs. It was like he was being reborn. The vampires had offered him everything society had denied him and he had embraced it body and soul.
He watched the families run from the dance floor, women and teenage boys leading children into the lighted entrance to their homes while others, women and men, picked up their weapons and headed towards the fighting.
He signalled for his men to follow and he left the shadows and made his way towards the entrance. They had been searching a long time for this group of humans. His mouth began to salivate at the thought of the rewards they would receive for discovering the humans that had caused so much trouble for his masters. He did not feel any compunction about what he was about to do. He no longer considered himself to be human so why should he care what happened to them.
He looked down the lit corridor and saw the mass of frightened humans as they struggled to get to safety. Stewart pulled a grenade from his belt and held two fingers up to his men. They pulled their own grenades from their belts, pulled the pins, and threw them far into the lit corridor. They moved to the side and waited for the explosions. The ground shook and the screams began. Stewart moved into the corridor and made his way through the carnage firing calmly at anything that moved.
* * *
Something was wrong. April felt the floor shudder and people’s faces shifted in an instant from concern to panic. She was almost at the inlet but the crowd surged against her and threatened to wrench her from her rescuer’s grasp. She looked around and could see people screaming, their silent terror-filled faces made more poignant by her ignorance of what was happening. She fought against the tide of people but the flow was too strong. She felt her grip on her rescuer loosen and then a second hand clamped on her arm and she was wrenched violently against the flow of people. Despite the crowd, she felt herself being hauled towards the inlet. She was helpless to do anything and forced herself to ignore the pain as people kicked and punched at her in their panic.
She felt her face raked by someone’s nail; she thought that her arm would be pulled from its socket… and then, suddenly, she was free. Arms enveloped her. For a moment the hug was everything to her. It had been so long since she had felt real human contact. She was an outsider, someone who was different. Oh, there were a few who treated her well, Harris and Sandra really listened to what she had to say now that she had proven herself on the last mission, but she longed for something more. She didn’t want to be the poor little deaf girl; she wanted contact, companionship. She felt the arms around her loosen and she considered wrapping her arms more tightly around her rescuer, but she knew she could not. Something was happening.
When her rescuer came into view she was shocked. Robert Seager’s face was scratched and his hands were torn badly where she had fought against him. She was about to apologise when she saw the urgency in his face. She hadn’t had much contact with Seager before; he had always been aloof, and she assumed that he was a typical idiot who thought anyone not normal was beneath their attention. She had been wrong.
Seager over a foot taller than her. His clothes were soaked from the rain and his hair was plastered to his skull giving him a more angular, almost hawkish look. His shoulders were broad and his arms were muscular. She immediately remembered their strength as they had held her and she felt her face grow hot. Her attention was distracted when he began to sign to her and she suddenly realised that she had been staring at him. His hands were smeared red from the deep scratches along his arms. The words were garbled and inaccurate in his haste but the fact that he knew any sign hit her like a slap. Where did he learn that? She felt a warmth rush through her as she looked into this boy’s eyes and saw something there she had missed before. How had she missed that? She noticed everything; she had to in order to survive in her silent world. She brought her hands up to cover his gently, stopping his signing. She signalled for him to talk and she would read his lips. She could see the relief in his face as the words tumbled from his mouth. Her face went pale as she learned of the attack, the explosion… Seager’s face snapped to the side suddenly as he looked out into the milling mass of people that still streamed past. She caught the words that fell from his lips and a cold hand gripped her heart.
‘Gunfire. They’re coming’.
* * *
Conor Ricks heard an explosion. At first he thought it was a dream. Consciousness had been swimming in and out over the last few days. He had heard Sarah Warkowski tell the other nurses to pump him full of drugs to keep him still. At least the pain had disappeared but he didn’t like the constant feeling of floating. He also wasn’t sure what was real and what was imagined. He was pretty sure he had seen Emma come to see him, but then again he was also convinced his mother had come as well and she was dead. Wasn’t she?
He tried to concentrate, to clear the mugginess from his head. Had he heard gunfire or had he imagined it? He strained his ears but heard nothing further. And then he heard a popping, like popcorn, and he expected to smell the distinctive smell of cooking corn but none came. The popping continued and it was getting louder. And were those screams? His head still swam and he tried to lull himself back to sleep but something deep down wouldn’t let it go and continued to nag at him. Something was wrong, he could feel it. He tri
ed to pull himself up and pain flooded through his body. His shoulder was on fire and his side flared in agony but he persisted. One good thing about the pain was that it cleared his head. For the first time in ages he could concentrate and think properly. He gritted his teeth and rode the aches as he forced himself upright. The popping was getting louder but he took it slowly, he couldn’t afford to pass out. Now that his mind was clear he was fairly certain that the base was under attack. How and by whom would have to wait, for now he had to get himself up or risk being shot while helpless in bed.
The room was stark—a bed, a chair, and a tangle of wires that flowed into a big, softly beeping machine to his left. The wires terminated in his arm and he pulled them out carefully, wincing as the sharp beeping grew louder and filled the room and drove into his head like a knife. He ignored the noise. Someone was likely to hear it but by now he could hear screams and the popping was louder again. People were dying out in the corridors of his home, but he had to take his time or he would be no good to anyone. Thoughts of Emma raced through his mind; he knew for certain she would be in the thick of the fighting, if she was still alive. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and paused as his head swam dangerously. He felt himself falling forward and grabbed at the machine beside him to steady himself. The machine tipped over and, a moment before he hit the floor, he heard a crash. The alarm was cut off in mid squeal just before darkness swept over him.
* * *
April saw crowds of people sweep past her in panic. Bodies were falling beneath trampling feet; some were dead before they slipped beneath the throng. She saw bullets strike their bodies, slamming into their flesh. She saw the blood arc high from the wounds and splatter others. The eyes of those still alive showed only madness and fear as they pressed further into the complex.
She held Seager’s hand tightly as bodies fell into their small alcove but, mercifully, the crowd was too intent on fleeing the bullets that no one noticed their small island of safety. The last of the crowd began to rush past and she cried as she saw the number of bodies left in their wake. One small girl, she couldn’t have been more than nine, lay mere feet from her, her small arm outstretched as if pleading to be saved. She knelt beside the girl probing her body to see if she still lived. The child’s glazed eyes told her everything she needed to know. There were three ugly blood-soaked marks across her back, the flesh torn by the high calibre bullets and April placed her hands on the wounds as if her touch could heal. Tears ran down her cheeks. She looked out at the corridor mere feet away and saw a trail of bodies. Suddenly, the walls in front of her erupted and masonry exploded outwards. She looked curiously at them for a moment until it hit her. They’re coming.
April felt anger deep in her stomach. She launched to her feet and moved to Robert indicating the corridor behind him, but he shook his head sadly and shrugged. She looked past him and saw that the alcove ended abruptly just behind him. Two doors on either side of the narrow corridor had small signs indicating electrical equipment on one and storage on the other. She flew past him and pulled at the doors frantically, her bloodied hands slipping on the handles. They were locked. They had nowhere to go. She looked to Seager but his face showed nothing but resignation.
She looked around, determined not to allow the bastards who had killed that girl to kill her too. She looked for a weapon, anything to fight back with. Her hand grazed the wall and left a smear of red and she stopped suddenly and took a closer look. She felt Seager put his hand on her shoulder and she whirled so quickly he jumped back. She dropped to the little girl’s body again and rubbed her hands along the wounds getting blood all over her. She quickly smeared the blood on her own clothes and face and urged him to do the same. He knelt beside her quickly and within seconds they were both covered in blood. She saw Seager’s head snap towards the corridor and he motioned for her to get down. They both dropped flat just as she saw a shadow appear at the opening.
She squeezed her eyes closed and tried not to breath. Her heart thumped in her chest like a piston and she was certain they would hear her. She dared not open her eyes, but she couldn’t hear whether the killers were coming towards her or passing by. Her hand lay close to Seager’s, and she could just feel his finger touching hers. April’s whole world was concentrated on that single touch of skin. She longed to reach out and grab his hand in hers and squeeze, to feel something in the void she was in. At least Seager would know if their attackers were coming; the first she would know would be a bullet or a hand gripping her hair. She braced her body for the impact and lay there for what seemed like hours.
When the touch did come, she jumped and began throwing her arms out, screaming her defiance silently, though no less vociferously. She felt arms around her and she snapped open her eyes to see Seager holding her. She could feel his breath on her neck and the movement of his jaw as he spoke to her. She couldn’t hear him of course but his touch and his warmth were enough and she lost herself to him as the tears came.
Chapter 3
The .50 calibre stopped firing and silence descended over the wasteland. The shrapnel finally stopped slamming into her, but Emma Logan did not feel relief. If the big gun was silent that meant her team was dead and the main force of thralls was now free to attack her community. She strained to hear any movement around her but her ears were still ringing from the thunder of the heavy machine gun.
She lifted her head tentatively, ready to drop back into the dirt if they were just reloading. She found herself wishing that the gun would start up again but the night remained silent and her heart felt despair. In the distance she began to hear a popping noise and she knew that their attackers had begun the main assault. Conor was in there, helpless in a hospital bed, she thought suddenly and she rose to her knees slowly. Small fires throbbed, heroically casting stuttering light as the rain attempted to hammer them to oblivion. She made her decision. She checked her weapon, brushing mud from the firing mechanism, and inspecting her spare magazines. What she wouldn’t give to have a few clips of the special vampire rounds but they were strictly rationed. With one last look around her she slipped through the darkness towards the glowing fires.
* * *
Denis Jackson jumped when he heard the explosions behind them. Grenades, he thought. He turned towards the main entrance and could see flames leaping into the night. Gunfire followed quickly and then the screams began. People he knew were dying. He tried to blank it all out. He knew that if they left their post then the main attack world sweep over them and everyone would die.
He knew that there were others in the community who were tasked with protecting the families...the children, but it didn’t help when the screams continued. Where were the squads? Had they run, were they dead? Questions flooded through him and his resolve began to weaken. He started to rise but Delilah held him down. Her eyes were filled with tears but her jaw was set. For a moment he felt like pulling away, their friends were dying for God’s sake, but he knew there was nothing he could do. They had a job to do and many more would die if the main force came through.
He eased back into their hollow and scanned the wasteland. Each second seemed to be marked with a scream as another of their friends died; he began to wonder if the main force was not already behind them. Were they here for nothing? He looked to Delilah but she stared resolutely out into the wasteland. The pop of gunfire began to grow quieter as the thralls moved deeper into their home.
Denis had had enough. He looked around for his crutches and had one in his hand when Delilah hissed quietly and pointed her weapon out to her left. Denis dropped his crutch guiltily and looked out where Delilah had indicated. It only took a few seconds to see the shapes moving towards them.
The darkness was absolute and the rain acted like a curtain, shielding everything that was more than a few feet away. But the grenades had started fires behind him and the feeble light was enough to paint the attacking figures with mottled radiance. A cruel grin spread over his face as he lined up on the lead figures. Ano
ther few seconds and they would be close enough. These bastards had attacked and killed families without a shred of pity and now it would be their turn. Anger burned within him. When the firing began he picked his targets and poured fire mercilessly into their ranks. Bodies pirouetted and jerked as bullets slammed into them. He heard someone screaming and laughing and was shocked to realise that it was him. Suddenly he found he was on his feet, swaying dangerously on his ruined leg, firing and reloading and firing again. Bullets began to slam into the ground around him as the thralls fired back. These bastards had…
Something crashed into his legs and pain seared through him.
* * *
“Too soon,” Phil McAteer mumbled as he watched the first of the attackers fall. “Bloody amateurs”, he cursed. If only they had waited. Another few seconds and the whole force would have been within the kill zone. Someone couldn’t wait though and had opened fire too early.
“Shit,” McAteer could already see some of the thralls spread out beyond his field of vision and the rain enveloped them like a welcoming blanket on a cold day. Now they had a battle on their hands.
He signalled for the two men on his left to backtrack and cover their left flank and two more on the right to cover that flank. From what he had seen there were fifteen attackers plus however many were already in the community buildings. It looked like this was a scouting patrol and not a full assault; otherwise the .50 calibre would never have held them this long. The thralls were well trained, not the cannon fodder they were used to dealing with. They had planned this assault well and had used the night and rain to their advantage. They thralls had caught them at the very worst time— celebrating and out of position, the music drowning out their preparations until it had been almost too late. However, they had been top dog for so long that they had not taken as much care as they should have. They had sent a force around them to take the .50 calibre out but the main force had been coming through as if they were invincible, barely using the cover the wasteland provided. Emma had heard them and now they had a fight on their hands. It might take a lot of bullets to put them down but they would die and McAteer was ready and willing to send them back to hell. He sighted carefully at the lead figure already moving forward in a half crouch and squeezed the trigger. The attacker’s head snapped back and he fell to the ground. Only took one round if you blew their brains out.
